From his early childhood
and now into his 90's Norman Lear certainly can brag that in his
ninety plus years he has been there, seen that and done that and when
he says “even this I get to experience,” he really means it. As
he mentions in his memoir, Norman Lear: Even This I Get To
Experience, he certainly had
developed a deep appreciation for the absurdities amid the gravity of
our existence.

Lear is an iconic figure
who is well-known for his innovative television sitcoms in the 1970's
that included All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Mary Hartman,
Mary Hartman, Sanford And Son, The Jeffersons, as well as such
films as Divorce American Style and Cold Turkey.
Throughout his career he was a trail blazer opening doors in covering
topics that were previously taboo such as race, poverty,
homosexuality, sex, divorce, bigotry, and racism and was never afraid
of controversy. He even tangled with the evangelical preacher Jerry
Falwell who once labelled him the “number one enemy of the
American family.”

Beginning with his early
life, Lear describes his family that hardly met their daily expenses
and where his father was always trying to make a “fast buck” in
some kind of “monkey business” that eventually landed him in
prison for trying to sell phony bonds to a brokerage house. You can
well imagine the effect it had on Lear when at the tender age of nine
he witnessed his father being taken away in hand cuffs.
Incidentally, the character of Archie Bunker in All in the Family
was patterned after his father and Edith's character was inspired
after his mother.

At sixteen, Lear and his
family moved back from Brooklyn to Hartford and it was here that he
fell in love with vaudeville, which, as he states, “without being
aware of this at the time, used it as a course of study.” His
appetite for writing began in high-school and he had been talented
enough to win a scholarship to Emerson College in Boston in a
National Oratorical Contest. In his third semester when the USA
entered into the Second World War Lear enlisted in the Army and was
a radio operator and was discharged in 1945.

Lear did not initially set
out to become a Hollywood writer but rather preferred a career in
publicity. After being discharged from the army, he drew up a
one-page announcement describing himself as someone that had spent the
greater part of twenty-four years dreaming and preparing for such a
career where he would promote others. He sent the announcement to his
uncle Jack who passed it onto sixteen publicity houses in New York,
Chicago and Los Angeles. He heard from two of them and received a job
offer, which he accepted, from one of them. This was a firm that
represented Broadway shows as well as personalities. It was here
where he began writing witticisms, making up stories as well as
attention-getting comments concerning actors, playwrights, producers,
and designers that would be placed into the columns of several
newspapers.

Eventually, Lear and his
first wife and child found their way to Los Angeles where he teamed
up with his cousin Elaine's husband, Eddie Simmons and the two begin
writing for such comedians as Danny Thomas, Dean Martin and Jerry
Lewis, and several others. After several years, Lear's relationship
ended and he next teamed up with Bud Yorkin and formed Tandem
Productions that proved to be a huge success.

Over the years Lear had
been involved with over one hundred television shows either as a
producer, creator or developer. His primary focus, as he mentions,
was to create good television using characters that represented real
Americans, even if that meant stepping on toes or fighting with the
various networks and others, which happened quite frequently.

It is difficult to
estimate the impact Lear had on American television and well beyond,
but these sitcoms, which were unconventional, brought forth a new
generation of comedy that veered completely away from the light
domestic plots of television's early years. Lear quotes Paddy
Chayefsky who said: “Norman Lear took television away from dopey
wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private
eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustler that constituted television chaos
and, in their place, put the American people. He took the audience
and put them on the set.” And now thanks to his candid memoir we
are able to understand who he was, what made him tick and in his own
words, how he made comedy safe for reality.